Help with RU Jaya Ballard control deck please
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on April 22, 2018, 1:10 p.m. by 40fy
I want to try to build a deck around Jaya Ballard and Fight with Fire. The idea is to play her on turn 5, then use the first +1 to cast removal to protect her. Potentially on turn 6 you could look to kick Fight with Fire, or alternatively use her second +1 to cycle through your deck to find more removal and keep hitting land drops until you can hard kick Fight with Fire. This would obviously be a control deck. The problem is that I have no experience building control.
One thought I had was to branch into blue. This gives access to some more removal and draw options. Among the obvious payoffs is Champion of Wits, and at that point I started thinking about some sort of UR wizard sub theme. Any thoughts on this? To be clear, I am not looking to make a Torrential Gearhulk deck.
Again, I have no idea how to build a control deck. I've barely even played control. Can anyone give some advice for how to go about building this? How would a curve look, how should my spells curve out, and how to optimize the land base? Any card recommendations would help too. Thanks.
Let me preface this by stating that while I am trying to make a deck that I can use at FNM, I have no expectations of designing a real competitive deck. I don't have a problem with using Torrential Gearhulk, it's just that it's rotating soon and I would rather the deck not rely on it. I understand that UB and UW are the meta control setups right now, but I want to do red.
The decklist you gave is pretty helpful. Thinking about it more, I think this is going to try to be a little bit faster than that deck, although not by much. The biggest challenge is going to be figuring out how to deal with not having Fatal Push. I am currently looking at alternate win conditions that might fit, I'll get back to you with a decklist as soon as it's ready.
April 22, 2018 5:26 p.m.
You have Magma Spray, Lightning Strike, and Harnessed Lightning that can all take the place of Fatal Push.
If you are in you also have access to Essence Scatter, and Syncopate, which works amazingly well in the early game when people tap out to play their Creatures.
April 22, 2018 5:50 p.m.
stensiagamekeeper says... #6
First off Argy has covered the control angle pretty well although I will suggest a couple cards. Dynavolt Tower could be a reasonable alternate win condition and Sweltering Suns is probably the best thing to do with the the turn you play Jaya Ballard. Reduce / Rubble is interesting as on it's own it's a passable counter spell but also a sweat thing to do with the maybe to keep you opponent off a color or prevent them using all their mana to do something scary. Plus you can discard it for value. The First Eruption might be useful in getting a Jaya Ballard out early and getting the devotion necessary to cast her while cleaning up X/1s and incentivizing your opponent to not play creatures that die to the third ability until after it has gone off.
If you are trying wizard tribal I've seen people go one of two ways: spell-slinging aggro with Adeliz, the Cinder Wind and all the best aggressively costed wizards, i.e. Ghitu Lavarunner and Soul-Scar Mage etc., or a mid-range value based strat focused on Naban, Dean of Iteration and Champion of Wits. Jaya doesn't work at all with the former and probably wouldn't with the latter either however there may be an argument for using her to reach enough mana to go infinite with Naru Meha, Master Wizard (if I remember I'll ctrlC-ctrlV some in another comment*).
If you want some more ideas of how you could break Jaya I've wanted to build a Naya 'all about the graveyard' deck with all the random eternalize and aftermath jank for a while now. It is possible to embalm an Honored Hydra and swing for lethal with Onward / Victory and the triple rummage +1 might just be enough to get it there. I'm not saying it would be good but at least it's original.
What Jaya makes me excited about however is Indomitable Creativity. The aim of the deck usually is to make a lot of creatures or artifacts without using artifact or creature spells (like with Sram's Expertise or Huatli, Warrior Poet) and then use Indomitable Creativity to tutor out three creatures or artifacts that let you combo off and win immediately (the only three in the deck) such as Whirler Virtuoso, Gonti's Aether Heart and Panharmonicon or Forerunner of the Empire, Polyraptor and Regisaur Alpha or just hit multiple Herald of Anguish and make your opponent discard their hand. The deck has to run practically only instant and sorceries so jaya's first and last abilities just slot right in. And the triple red in her casting cost also isn't that bad as you are trying to set that up for Indomitable Creativity anyway. Plus jaya means that you can potentially pump much larger quantities into the value of X and therefore can afford to maybe run a couple of non-combopiece artifact or creature spells.
April 22, 2018 11:13 p.m.
stensiagamekeeper says... #7
*
Naru Meha, Master Wizard + Siren's Ruse + Naban, Dean of Iteration + Sailor of Means = win
Naru Meha + Sirens ruse + naban + etb creature = infinite etbs
Naru Meha + Sirens ruse + naban + Wizard's Lightning = infinite damage
Naru Meha + Saheeli's Artistry = infinite copies of any creature
Naru Meha + Illusionist's Stratagem + sailor of means = win
Naru Meha + Illusionist's strategem = infinite draw
Naru Meha + Illusionist's stratagem + etb creature = infinite etb and draw
Naru Meha + Illusionist stratagem + naban + wizard's lightning = infinite damage
Naru Meha + Release to the Wind + naban + etb creature = infinite etbs
Naru Meha + Release to the wind + naban + wizards lightning = infinite damage
Naru Meha + Release to the wind + Diligent Excavator = infinite mill
Naru Meha + Baral's Expertise = River's Rebuke
Naru Meha + Barals expertise + dilligent excavator = infinite mill
Naru Meha + Barals expertise + naban + etb creature= infinite etbs
April 22, 2018 11:33 p.m.
Wizards beatdown looks like fun, and since I will be buying a bunch of wizards anyways I probably be giving that I try.
I think I misnamed this discussion. What I am really trying to build isn't necessarily wizards control or Jaya control. I am trying to make a Fight with Fire deck. Its just that those other things happen to fit quite nicely with what I am trying to do.
The standard legal Nara combos look fun, but they seem a little janky to get off consistently. Its not like that cat lady deck where there was a ton of support to pull the two combo pieces out of your deck. Where she actually seems broken is edh. Just imagine the combos you call pull off by say replicating a retraction helix or other infamous blue combo cards.
Argy says... #2
You have put a lot of thought into the interaction between Jaya Ballard and Fight with Fire, but you kind of need to have more than one way of winning.
Champion of Wits on its own won't do it.
You don't want to use Torrential Gearhulk, yet that card has defined Control once we saw how good it was.
Control was strong a couple of seasons back, but these days is a better option, due to The Scarab God, Torrential Gearhulk, and Tetzimoc, Primal Death.
There is a case to be made for being a very good Control colour this season.
Building a Wizards Tribal deck would be the most interesting idea you've come up with.
Throw something together and I can take a look at it.
If you want to see what a good Control deck looks like, take a look at this one:
Grixis Control by yuta666
April 22, 2018 4:12 p.m.